Storm Over Asia

With live accompaniment by Yat-Kha

Directed by V. I. Pudovkin
(1928, USSR)
Silent, B&W, 140-min

October 6, 2001, 8 pm
Sanders Theater, Cambridge, MA

In recent years I have had the pleasure of experiencing a number of
excellent live music performances accompanying silent films: The Club
Foot Orchestra's shadowy tonal palette mirroring the moody
expressionism of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Yakov Gubanov's
supremely romantic adaptation of Debussy's "La plus que lente" for the
bittersweet Pandora's Box, the percussive dynamo of the Alloy
Orchestra chugging alongside the harrowing antics of Buster Keaton.
Yet none has been so definitive, so organically complementary, so
impossible to imagine the movie without, as Tuvan throat-singing rock
band Yat-Kha's performance for Pudovkin's epic-on-the-steppe Storm
Over Asia.

Was it the loping rhythm of the igil (horsehead fiddle) as
Mongolian riders galloped across the vast rolling landscape? The airy
overtones of khöömei throat singing evoking the
solitude and persistence of human existence among the empty wind-raked
hills? The clanging cymbals and the double-bass growling
(kargiraa) of the Buddhist monks during a ritual feast? The
band members' whispered lip-synching in their own language of an
imagined dialogue as the hunter hero bids farewell to his parents?
Was it the thundering of Albert Kuvezin's distorted electric guitar
urging on the angry horde to the climactic uprising sequence?

To understand the natural affinity between the film and the band, one
needs to examine the bare bones of Tuvan history. Nomadic since
several centuries BC, Tuvans came under the control of Genghis Khan in
1207 and remained under Mongolian and Chinese rule until 1911.
Occupied by Russia in 1914, it then became a Soviet satellite in 1921
after the Reds won the civil war. In the maelstrom of World War II,
Tuva was annexed by USSR, and today remains a part of Russia after the
breakup of the Soviet Union. Storm Over Asia was shot in
1928 in Tuva when it had a measure of autonomy, although the story
takes place during the Russian civil war. Pudovkin filmed extensive
footage of local life--including Buddhist ceremonies--providing
invaluable ethnographic records of cultural traditions that would,
ironically, be suppressed by the Soviets after annexation. I imagine
that Pudovkin must have told his party bosses that his film would
commemorate the heroic contribution of the Red Russian partisans in
overthrowing the oppressive capitalist occupiers (depicted as British
in the movie). There are, in fact, a few such scenes. However,
whatever his original intentions were, the film seen now in its
restored director's version is clearly a paean to self-determination
and autonomy for Central Asia. It is no wonder then that the
communist censors recut the film extensively and finally banned it
altogether. (The British were also incensed and edited their own
version by turning the bad guys into White Russians.)

To have Yat-Kha provide live accompaniment to this newly resurrected
film was a stroke of genius. Other Tuvan bands might have done just
as well for the slice-of-local-life scenes in the first half, such as
the premier folkloric group Huun-Huur-Tu (in which Yat-Kha leader
Kuvezin was an early member). However, as we followed the evolution
of our hero from a hapless hunter who is cheated by an evil capitalist
fur trader, to a hapless Red partisan fighter who is captured and
sentenced to death, to a hapless puppet ruler who finally explodes in
a frenzy of superhuman strength and leads his people in rebellion, the
extreme dynamic range of electric instruments became necessary to keep
up with the inevitable crescendo of the drama. In the final,
over-the-top, furious montage sequence in which the massing horse
riders literally transformed into a wind storm that blew away the
oppressors, the band's hard-driving blast of rock-'n'-roll transcended
cliche to provide a cathartic kick-ass finish.

Kuvezin, who as a "subversive" punk rocker had attracted the
attentions of the communist ideology police, also injected timely
doses of levity using riffs from the well-known rock repertoire, such
as Pink Floyd's "Money" (entrance of the fur trader) and Deep Purple's
"Smoke on the Water" (the enraged general's head framed by rising
smoke). After having seen this film with Yat-Kha's performance, it is
difficult to imagine how else it could have been accompanied. By a
wheezy Wurlitzer upping the emotional ante by a succession of
half-step modulations? A tinkly upright piano playing ragtime and
early jazz stylings? An astringent string ensemble performing a
Shostakovitch score?

Storm Over Asia's new lease on life was orchestrated by Realityfilm from surviving
footage provided by Film Preservation Associates and the British Film
Institute J. Paul Getty Conservation Center. Storm Over
Asia's U.S. tour with Yat-Kha is now over. Let's hope
they schedule a return trip so that more people will get a chance to
experience first-hand this Molotov cocktail of a warning against all
imperialist oppressors of the world.